Celebrating One Year of Fun with Biblical Words and World

Today is my final post on Biblical Words and World. I hope we’ve all had some fun together digging deeper into God’s word over the past year! I wish to thank Patheos for hosting me, my editor for putting up with me, and you, my readers from all over the world, from Myanmar and Manchester (UK), from Iowa, Saint Louis, and southern Illinois.

Without knowing the exact statistics, it would appear that my most-read posts were:

1. “What Does Jesus Say about Homosexual Behavior?” (May 3)
2. “Logical Grounds for Jesus’ Virgin Birth” (December 11) and “Messiah’s Mother: Virgin or Young Woman?” (December 13)
3. “Thief or Terrorist? What Kind of Criminal Was Crucified With Jesus?” (March 22)
4. “Male Performance Issues in Biblical Times” (January 29)
5. “Jonah and the Eclipse in Ancient Nineveh” (August 7)
6. “Gambling Is Not a Biblical Issue” (June 11)
7. “No Room for the Inn” (December 18), “Born in Bethlehem: Fabrication or Fact?” (December 21) and “Was December 25 Jesus’ Birthday After All?” (December 25)
8. “Brothers or Cousins of Jesus?” (December 28)
9. “Desire, Lust, and Coveting: It’s All the Same Word” (February 12)
10. “Same-Sex Marriage in Biblical Times” (January 25)
11. “Jesus’ Shocking Words at Hanukkah” (December 7)
12. “Is Second Peter a Fraud?” (June 21)
13. “How Much Did Paul Get From Jesus?” (June 25)
14. “Does God Care How We Dress?” (January 31)
15. “Jesus Recommends Gun Ownership?” (November 6)

If you missed any of these, scroll down to where you can work back in time through the list of previous posts to the post you are looking for. Patheos will keep these blog posts there for a long time.

In keeping with the title of this blog, 42 of my 109 posts were Biblical word studies. If you missed them, some of those posts that you might find of interest, in addition to some of the above posts, include “Count It All Dung” (last July 24), “What Does the Bible Teach about Obscene Language?” (also posted last July 24), “What’s Wrong With Getting Drunk?” (August 9), “Belial and Sons” (October 30), “Concubine Versus Married Woman in the Bible” (October 5), “Drag Versus Draw: How Does God Bring People to Faith?” (February 22), “Be Ye Perfect?” (June 14), and “Iron Age Super Mom: Woman of Valor” (May 9).

You ask, “Why are you retiring?” Last summer, I made a one-year agreement to do this twice a week. It was truly a God-send, but I honestly wondered whether I could handle that commitment for an entire year. I am thankful that God gave me what I needed to keep writing for this long. Running low on good ideas is as good a reason as any for me to finish on a high note.

There is more that I could have written, but much of it would have been nerdy stuff that few would ever read. One post would have been on the wild number of different ways that the common Hebrew prepositions le- and ‘al can be translated. ‘Al can be translated “over,” “upon,” “about,” “against,” “with,” “although,” and numerous other ways, leading us to be unsure whether God has a word “about” or “against” Jerusalem. Another post would have been on evidence from Greek and from the cuneiform Amarna tablets on how Biblical Hebrew was originally pronounced, since the vowels are not original, and since some of the consonants are now pronounced differently. One example is the name Gomorrah, where the Greek gives us an initial G that shows us how the Hebrew ‘ayin used to be pronounced (today it is silent). Let’s face it, most people would rather watch silly cat videos than read such nerdy posts.

Finding pictures for this blog has been an entertaining challenge. Sometimes I could find the right picture on the Internet, such as for “Desire” (February 12) and “Drag Versus Draw” (February 22). Sometimes I had to make my own, such as my “Christ the Builder” (August 14) and Jesus saying “Aselgeia” (May 3). I myself took photos of Capernaum (“More Tolerable for Sodom?” – October 2), Gehenna (January 11), Caesarea Philippi (April 28), the Gerasense cliff (April 26), and Silver Falls State Park, Oregon (last July 31). I used pictures of the great theologian Catherine Hobson for “God’s Sex Mandate” (September 14) and “Iron Age Super Mom” (May 9). And she was the photographer for pictures of me as Mad Dog Tannen covered with manure (last July 24) and Pastor Marty McFly going back in time (May 21), along with pictures of the Highway OO sign (June 7) and the dead donkey outside Jerusalem (June 4).

I must confess, it has been difficult to hold back my political opinions in this forum. For every political opinion that I have expressed, there is far more that I have suppressed. But we undermine the credibility of the Good News we proclaim whenever we identify Jesus too closely with any partisan political position. I also realize that to pour out our anger over the political evils we see will not accomplish the changes we wish to see. Jesus’ brother writes, “The anger of humans does not work the righteousness of God.” (James 1:21)

If I had done Biblical word studies on “hypocrisy” or “hate,” I would have quickly gotten political. One bedrock fact about the historical Jesus is that he couldn’t stand hypocrisy, which is what I see in the double standard applied to the sins of our political parties by the dominant opinion-makers. I also wish that those who preach so passionately against “hate” would look in the mirror at the past year and a half of their own round-the-clock “Two-Minutes Hate.” (See Orwell’s 1984 for the reference.)  I see self-proclaimed champions of the justice and compassion of Jesus, who will rip to shreds anyone who disagrees with them. (See https://babylonbee.com/news/movement-that-demands-forceful-silencing-of-all-opposing-viewpoints-unsure-why-nation-so-divided/.)  So much for the “civility” we are scolded to show toward one another.

Two of my heroes from Gordon-Conwell were professors Gordon Fee and Doug Stuart. Both of them were stellar in their Biblical scholarship.  Dr. Stuart had a wonderful sense of humor; I still remember his impression of Jonah singing in blubbering Hebrew from the belly of the fish! And I remember Dr. Fee for his passion. He is quoted as asking, “Why do I have to choose between being a pastor on fire or a scholar on ice? Why can’t I be a scholar on fire?” It has been my lifelong hope to be like them.

Today, I am finally throwing open the switch to allow Comments (see below). If you’ve been reading Biblical Words and World, I’d love to know who’s been reading this blog. That even goes for trolls! But be warned, trolls: other readers may not see you as knights in shining armor.

I hope you have enjoyed our time together as we have taken a closer look at Biblical words and the world in which they were written. I hope you have grown in your love for God’s word, as I have. And I hope we have all been able to have fun!